Frost vs Fire pve

[Deleted]

i see more people skilled on frost than fire and still doing insane dmg. I got 538ilvl and skilled fire. Doing around 200k dps. Whats your opinion on this

[Nitefyr]

Frost is fairly easy to play in which ever build you go for. It has much easier sustained damage. Also, it's been buffed pretty much every patch during MoP. Fire still does very well but only with high amounts of crit, roughly 50% or higher. Honestly, all 3 specs are doing very well this tier where as in the past there was one that was dominate. Play what you want and learn how to play it well and you'll do fine.

[Ponkster]

Frost is fairly less gear reliant to play in which ever build you go for. It has much less spiky sustained damage(not critting as fire is a big dps loss). Also, it's been buffed pretty much every patch during MoP. Fire still does very well but only with high amounts of crit, roughly 50% or higher. Honestly, all 3 specs are doing very well this tier where as in the past there was one that was dominate. Play what you want and learn how to play it well and you'll do fine.

fixed for you

[Deleted]

i got 31.5% crit unbuffed without int/armor. Actually idc what spec i play, i want to play the one which does the most dmg. So if you say you need at least 50% i should go frost until then?

[Deleted]

i played fire fire most of MoP and switched to Frost early ToT and then quit. Been frost since SoO and i do more damage on every fight than i do in fire, and thats with 48% crit in fire. I play a heavy haste frost build which is more about snap shotting bombs which makes it much more forgiving on movement fights

[Deleted]

Fire is a higher dps spec than frost providing you're equally skilled at both and 45%+ crit.

[Akraen]

Fire is a higher dps spec than frost providing you're equally skilled at both and 45%+ crit.

*with good RNG

It can swing lower than frost and you know it. Even if it has higher potential, which it does. Frost is more consistent and only slightly lower.

[Deleted]

Both Fire and Arcane have much more potential and damage than frost with good gear (>560). With 538 ilvl though I'd recommend go as frost until either you have >45%crit (raid buffed). or both 4pcT16 and immersus trinket

[Deleted]

Both Fire and Arcane have much more potential and damage than frost with good gear (>560). With 538 ilvl though I'd recommend go as frost until either you have >45%crit (raid buffed). or both 4pcT16 and immersus trinket

I'm frost and I've yet to see a mage beat me on recount (562 ilvl atm)

[Akraen]

Both Fire and Arcane have much more potential and damage than frost with good gear (>560). With 538 ilvl though I'd recommend go as frost until either you have >45%crit (raid buffed). or both 4pcT16 and immersus trinket

Man old mindsets die hard.

[Deleted]

Man old mindsets die hard.

I'm applying to a 8/14hc guild and I had to insist really hard for them to even let me show what my dps is in frost. We'll see wednesday how this sorts out.

[Deleted]

Both Fire and Arcane have much more potential and damage than frost with good gear (>560). With 538 ilvl though I'd recommend go as frost until either you have >45%crit (raid buffed). or both 4pcT16 and immersus trinket

Sadly I have no experience with good gear atm, so I am not questioning the numbers.

It just occured to me that I saw similar advices during early ToT, quite a lot, like:
"Frost is o.k. at 520lvl, then at * ilvl and * crit% and * trinket it's worth trying fire"
Could it be really be as simple as swapping the "520lvl" with a * as well?

[Deleted]

Fire is not rng.

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The only rng thing about fire is the Immerseus trinket on pull.

[Deleted]

With same level of skill you will do more as fire [0]. Frost rotation is really simple to master, not very challenging. The same happens with fire but combustion is a bit tricky to master (and you have to really understand how fire works, do not blame RNG your lack of knowledge). If you are doing more damage as frost with 562 ilvl is because you don't know how to play fire properly.

But it's totally true than this patch frost is not as bad as previous ones, but with enough gear is, once again, behind fire/arcane.

[0] I'd say this base on: simcraft, raidbot, personal experience (I've raid on this patch on three specs) and top world mages opinions (I trust more on their opinions than the frost-fanatic mages of this forums)

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Fire is not rng.

With our current ~50%crit. I totally agree.

[Zatetic]

It depends on all sorts of things. 10m vs 25m, not gear ilvl so much as secondary stat levels.

in 10hc I would avoid arcane as it is too restrictive.
if you have warlocks in your 10m team, go fire so you arent fighting for gear.
if youre 25, go arcane.
if you can reach the appropriate haste/mastery levels play frost or arcane
if you can reach crit, play fire.

do whatever really. it doesnt matter, you arent cutting edge so it doesnt matter what spec you play. They are all the same as far as youre concerned.

edit: as for the above comment
-simcraft has never simulated alter time properly for any spec but especially arcane or frost where you use all 6 seconds
-most fights in SoO, the top ranks for mages that play arcane and frost are higher than fire
-raidbots also shows arcane as the extremely dominant spec
-top mages dont just play fire, cutting edge mages played fire for a number of reasons. Mobility, conveyor belt for siegecrafter, because crit gear dropped and haste/mast didnt

[Deleted]

Raidbots is not good; of course frost will be a lot lower, cause its not played by top players. So lets say that frost is 5% inferior to fire. Every top mage will play fire. Average mage will be frost; result = what was 5% difference in theory is now 25% difference on parses.

[Akraen]

With same level of skill you will do more as fire [0]. Frost rotation is really simple to master, not very challenging. The same happens with fire but combustion is a bit tricky to master (and you have to really understand how fire works, do not blame RNG your lack of knowledge). If you are doing more damage as frost with 562 ilvl is because you don't know how to play fire properly.

But it's totally true than this patch frost is not as bad as previous ones, but with enough gear is, once again, behind fire/arcane.

[0] I'd say this base on: simcraft, raidbot, personal experience (I've raid on this patch on three specs) and top world mages opinions (I trust more on their opinions than the frost-fanatic mages of this forums)

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With our current ~50%crit. I totally agree.

What none of you guys ever seem to "get" is that if someone has to ask which is best, they're not going to be able to ever obtain the numbers that would be within the margin of differentiation among the 3 specs.

Combustion also isn't as hard as people seem to think it is. Addons do the thinking for you, don't pretend they don't. All three mage specs are fairly simple. Reacting and encounter-based choices are all that the player does to account for large DPS swings on kill parses.

Citing raid bots, why do you people still do this?

[Deleted]

Best thing about Frost is it's versatility. It has no fights where it's really bad and it's better cc abilities com in quite handy in fights with adds.

Respec and try for yourself. If you don't like it change back to fire. It will yield you better results then starting the next frost vs. fire debate.

[Deleted]

Both raid bots and simc are not good references, that's why I put them on a footnote with (the most important thing for me) my personal experience. Combustion is not hard, I agree, actually three specs are really easy, but frost is the most simple one to play.

btw, In my first response on this thread to Freaze I actually answer "go frost".

[Kendeura]

Citing raid bots, why do you people still do this?

Because statistics don't lie even though they're weighted down by less people playing frost; the only people playing frost at a high HC level are the not-idiots.